Yes, those are great ideas for books, Donald Maass

The very wonderful Writer Unboxed, a blog I can't recommend highly enough if you're at any stage in a writing career has posted a two part interview with Donald Maass of the Donald Maass Literary Agency (and the author of a lot of writing books). I strongly recommend reading the interview if you have any interest in what's being published as well as how and why it got that way.

In the article, it's mentioned that each month Mr. Maass's agency posts a wish list on their website of what they'd like to see submitted to them. November's list of detective stories is still up, and although I don't feel inspired to write in that genre, I'd like to read any of those ideas.

There's also a multi-genre wishlist in the first part of the article:

A Huck Finn-like fantasy featuring a raft trip down the Mississippi, with magic.

An African-American Lord of the Rings.

A noir novel featuring a Muslim detective–but not about terrorism.

An American epic like Of Mice and Men about today’s underclass, illegal immigrants.

A ghost story that’s truly contemporary—but not recycled Eighties horror.

An historical novel that weaves in scientists and big ideas.

A New York in mid-Century novel along the lines of Empire Rising.

A dog novel as great as Call of the Wild.

A literary romance with a heroine for all time and a tragic ending, written by a man.

The next The World According to Garp, about an idiot savant.

Yep, all interesting ideas. Some of those are a very tall order for any writer- "A dog novel as great as Call of the Wild"? Why not just say any book as great some other great classic? Of course any publisher would like that to show up on their desk! And a couple would be niche novels, not the "breakout" books that every publisher dreams of finding, and therefore might be tossed off the slush pile rather than read. But still, these are great ideas for books. In fact, I'm grabbing a couple. And I'm booking marking that monthly wishlist page.